Sensationalism
by Menolly Mark
Summary: Oneshot. Watson chronicles absently, Holmes looks on.


**Sensationalism**

by R. Porlock

One of my greatest qualms with the manners of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, lay in his inability to accept demurely the way that I portrayed him in my numerous studies of his methods.

I remember one morning when I was sitting at the table, breakfast having only just been cleared, scratching away at a notebook. Sherlock Holmes was out on a morning walk, as the fancy seemed to have suddenly taken him to go on a long, introspective stroll.

I was writing about the peculiar occurance of Mrs. Basil Sloane, and how my friend had single-handedly discovered the whereabouts of her runaway husband and missing children in the span of only a single day. It was a case that was particularly close to my heart, because it was one of the first in which I was lucky enough to take place after my friend's miraculous return from beyond the grave.

I was unsuccesful, however, in finishing before Holmes' return, and he wandered in, with a bang of the front door, just as I had finished penning the very first page. I did not turn, or tuck away my papers, hoping that he would not take notice of what I was up to.

"Ah, Watson," he said, even as he entered, "I see you are up to your old tricks again, aren't you."

"Tricks?" I asked. "I should hardly like to call my hobby of scribing your exploits a mere trick, Holmes, no more so than your own chemical studies, or your hours spent with the violin."

"You're right," my friend agreed. "Rather than tricks, I should consider them only displays, not conjuring enough to receive the more fanciful title."

I tried my best to ignore his rude remarks,. "You've eaten," I assume," I ventured, hoping to change the subject.

"I have," he agreed, "before you awoke this morning. Or rather," he corrected, "before you chose to come downstairs, as you were, I believe, too busy with your writings to join me for breakfast."

I felt slightly sheepish at this recognition of my morning's endeavors. It was true that I had foregone breakfast to stay upstairs and to write a few lines out of Holmes' view, so as to avoid the conversation that we had now started in upon.

"I should be happy to put this away," I said, "and to take it up at a more donvenient time."

"By more convenient," Holmes replied ruefully, "You mean a time at which I am not present." I was unable to respond to the truthfullness of this, and Holmes shrugged. "I don't care what you do, Watson," he said finally. "You're a grown man and quite entitled to scribble as you please. You know how I feel on the subject."

I did know. Holmes seemed to believe that in all of his great work, there was nothing worth remarkign on besides the cold and analytical facts of his cases. Had he had is way, I would be writing out lists and charts of dates and the different or changed names of the various culptrits, making data tables of the props they had used in their theatrical crimes and capers. I was glad, for a moment, that Holmes would have no children, as I was sure he would tell a miserable bed-time story.

Holmes went upstairs for a while, and left me to my work. There was a sliver of hurt pride in me that wanted very much, in this moment, to demonstrate exactly what it was that I could do, and to impress Holmes with my ability to paint a verbal picture, something that he had no desire for, and therefore had no talent for.

With that goal in mind, I devoted myself for some minutes, perhaps in fact, some hours, to the document before me. Often, I would cross out lines and replace them with new ones that I felt better fitted the passage, until my page was one large blotted pattern of dots, lines, and letters, which was really only legible to myeslf.

I was thoroughly frustrated with this result of my attempts, and I threw it down on the table in an excess of irritation. Not long after that, I went up to my own room, and languished away the time reading a novel which I had abandoned in favor of my own writing. It was my impresion that I could learn best from the masters, and so I had taken to reading a great deal of classic novels, trying to grasp the keys to the English language which seemed to escape me when my own pen was flying across the page.

It was a good time later, therefore, that I descended the stairs, feeling better and much calmer, only to find that my companion had returned to the sitting room before I had, and was at the table upon which I had previously been working.

I hurried forward to find, to my chagrin, that he was perusing the single page of my poorly-written account of the affair of the lost children. I hung back slightly, wondering if I should make again for the upstairs bedroom, when I heard Holmes make a little sound of pleasure, and, turning, saw him holding up the document to the light.

I pondered for a moment, wondering what it was that had so changed his heart about the piece when he noticed me, and turned to smile at me in a genial fashion that I had not yet seen from him this morning.

"Ah, Doctor," he said with a smile, "you really are too gentle in the way that you characterize my swaggering and sadistic person in this tale of yours."

I groaned. I had never meant for him to read it so soon before it's completion, and I snatched it up from him, trying to rememer what it was that I had written.

To my horror, the top of the page read as follows;

It was not long after the return of Mr. Sherlock Holmes to London that the color began to come back into my life. After the loss of my wife, Mary, I had felt as if there was nothing left for me, and looked upon the previous two years as the most evil time I had ever experienced. I have said before now that it was Holmes cases and his great intrigues that won me back from my black depression, but I have reason, after all, to believe that it was the companionship that I had so devoutly missed in the time during which I had thought him lost forever. There is a certain lifelong understanding amongst us, I believe, that I should hate to be rid of at all, and when he once spoke of a rapport between our two trained minds, he-!"

I put the paper down with my heart sinking in my chest. I did recall having ever written this on to the page, and was quite sure that Sherlock Holmes would find it both laughable and disturbing that I should put such a thing into an account of his work.

There was silence for several moments as I attempted to decide how I would attack the issue, and after a moment, I was quite determined that I would simply laugh it off, and walk out of the room. With this intent, I looked up at my friend's face, with forced merriment in my eye.

To my surprise, he was leaning against the table, staring at the document with a mixture of puzzlement, pleasure, and a sort of sensitive smile on his face that I had never before seen in all of my work with him.

"My dear Watson," he said, shaking his head at me with half-closed eyes. "You have always been quite the sensationalist."


End file.
